Intel Reveals Its Conroe Architecture

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At the 2006 Intel Developer Forum, Intel showed a Conroe system running existing generation PC games faster than an AMD system. And not only was the Intel system running at 2.66GHz—a slower clock rate than the top Pentium 4—it was outpacing an overclocked Athlon 64 FX-60. Wrap your brain around that idea for a bit while we dive into the architecture of Intel’s new progeny.

Listening to Intel discuss the new architecture benefits is somewhat reminiscent of listening to AMD talk about the Athlon 64 several years ago. Much of the discussion revolves around instruction efficiency (fewer cycles per instruction), lower power usage, and so on. But while Intel may be sometimes slow to respond to market pressures when they make a shift, the entire company enthusiastically moves in the new direction. By the time the smoke clears, it sounds like Intel invented the concept of IPC.

Issues of religious conversion aside, the new Core architecture, which is scheduled to ship in both mobile and desktop versions by the end of Spring, look to be well balanced, high-performance CPUs that will indeed require less power and generate less heat than current Pentium 4 or Pentium D. Let’s take a closer look. Continued…

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